According to the information posted nearby, the original jail was so bad that the first constable, Robert Montgomery Watson, used to give prisoners the option of sleeping on the kitchen floor of his home, rather than staying there. In the 1930s, his replacement, Harry Johanson, was also a trained architect and designed this new jail building bordering on the lake as a 2-cell jail. Obviously, there wasn't a lot of crime in Tahoe City at that time. Incorporated into a lakeside park, it is now used as a storage shed by the parks department.